An aneurysm is a permanent dilitation of the wall of a blood vessel usually caused by weakening of the wall as a result of some pathological condition. In layman's terms, the wall weakens and pressure in the vessel causes the wall to expand into a balloon appendage in the side of the vessel. The balloon often has a neck portion extending from the wall and an expanded portion connected to the neck, although an aneurysm may take various shapes.
One way of treating an aneurysm is to apply a clip to seal off the neck portion of the aneurysm close to the blood vessel wall so that blood pressure will not be exposed to the weakened expanded portion of the aneurysm. Thus, the possibility of the aneurysm bursting is reduced and hopefully eliminated. It is hoped that the clip will seal off the weakened portion of the wall so that blood vessel can heal. An aneurysm clip 8 of the kind stored in the container and dispenser of the present invention is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,827,438 and is shown generally in FIG. 8A and the disclosure of this patent, as it relates to aneurysm clips is incorporated into this application. These kinds of clips 8 generally have a torsion spring coil 10 with a first arm 12 extending from one end of the coil 10 and second arm 14 extending from the other end of the coil 10. Each of the first and second arms 12 and 14 has a shoulder portion 16, a cross over portion 18 and a jaw portion 20. When the shoulder portions are moved together (with a special forcep), jaw portions 20 move away from each other toward the open position so that an aneurysm can be grasped between the two confronting jaw portions to seal off an aneurysm.
Certain aneurysm clips are very small. Their small size makes them difficult to grasp properlY in a special forcep called an aneurysm clip applier. It would be desirable to have a container and dispenser for aneurysm clips particularly very small size aneurysm clips to make it easier for the user to visualize and properly grasp the clip.